Mitt Romney’s 47 Percent Problem

One of the many challenges of John McCain’s campaign four years ago, besides the past-due expiration date on the candidate himself, was Sarah Palin’s IED of a mouth. If the campaign wasn’t finished before her nomination, she doomed it. The biggest challenge for Mitt Romney, among too many to flip-flop through, is Mitt Romney’s mouth: what were IEDs in the McCain campaign are now suicide bombings in Romney’s, with Romney the Groundhog-Day bomber: he self-destructs, and comes back for more. Maybe Mormons have more in common with Buddhist notions of reincarnation than we knew.

The post-truth compulsions of the Romney campaign are making us nostalgic for Richard Nixon. But three howlers stand out (so far) from that video of Romney’s talk at a post-convention fund-raiser Mother Jones acquired (see below): his alleged joke about wishing he was Latino, his rejection of the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, which would be an astounding reversal of 35 years of American aims and policy going back to the Camp David accords of 1978, and of course this statement, the most damaging at home, which must have lacked the usual warning savvier political candidates tend to respect (“don’t try this at home”):

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Romney’s backtracking in a rapid-deployment news conference Monday evening was clever but convincing only to the extent that it confirmed his pirouetting skills and the vacuum at his political inner-core: he’ll fill it with whatever is necessary to say, to win, in any given moment. He smoothed the edges of his abrasive statements at the fund-raiser, but he did not retreat from the fundamental points, and dug his hole deeper in some regards, especially when he cast the election in purely self-serving mathematical terms, when he described his aims at no more than winning 50.1 percent. That’s not the best way to portray oneself as a statesman-like leader who recognizes the limits of his appeal but nevertheless aims to represent the entire nation.

The statement about the 47 percent is in and of itself, in whatever context, a fountain of revelations, mostly of Romney’s contradictions and cynicism.

First, while 46 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax in 2011, most of those paid the payroll tax, which, by itself, puts most Americans’ tax liability at more than half that of Mitt Romney’s 13 percent: it’s not smart for a man whose millions are taxed so lightly to criticize half of America of paying no taxes. The majority of those 47 percent also pay excise taxes, state taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and sin taxes, to name a few.

Then there’s the insult about those 47 percent as “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims.” But most of the people who pay no income taxes don’t do so because of Republican policies. It’s Democrats, remember, who allegedly like to tax people more, and Republicans who do the opposite. You can’t have it both ways—cut taxes then blame the opposition for not paying taxes.

Ronald Reagan successfully pushed the Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives working class people money back as an incentive for working. The Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded by Newt Gingrich on the way to welfare reform Bill Clinton signed in 1997. Republican-favored tax credits to the elderly, passed with winning states like Florida in mind, eliminated millions of elderly tax payers from the tax rolls. George W. Bush’s massive 2001 tax cuts eliminated millions of lower-income people off the tax rolls. His massive 2003 tax cut, much of which directed at the wealthiest Americans by way of exempting investment income, lowered the tax liabilities of another chunk (Romney was in that batch).

The expansion of the child tax credit eliminated millions more (7.8 million, according to the Tax Foundation). A good many millionaires, too, pay no income taxes: 4,000 did so in 2011, by taking advantage of deductions. Dependent on government? Maybe: on deductions. Victims? In the Romney liturgy, they’re only victims of still-too-high taxes: his tax cuts would exempt even more people from paying them.

Finally, while a majority of people who pay no income taxes do so by taking advantage of tax breaks, three-fourths of remaining households that pay no income tax do so “because of provisions that benefit senior citizens and low-income working families with children. Those provisions include the exclusion of some Social Security benefits from taxable income, the tax credit and extra standard deduction for the elderly,” the Tax Policy Center found. See the fuller Tax Policy Center’s analysis here.

One last point. In his backtracking Monday evening, Romney blamed President Obama for the 23 million people who are either out of work or under-employed, and said he was running for president to help them. But he’d just called people receiving unemployment checks “victims” and “dependents.” He’d just lumped most of those 23 million people in the “my-job-is-not-to-worry-about-those-people” camp, adding them to batches of Social Security recipients, those millionaires and those working class people, who have been voting solidly Republican since Reagan.

Romney’s math has never computed. His politics aren’t computing, either. Nor is his campaign. At that fund-raiser he didn’t so much reveal who he was as confirm what had been known and presumed but never said so well in his own words. He called himself inelegant in his backtracking last night. That’s the least of it.

55 Responses for “Mitt Romney’s 47 Percent Problem”

Let’s not forget that this is the guy that mistook a press release by the embassy in Cairo intended to quell rioting as an official release from the Obama administration regarding the Libya consulate attack, never mind the fact that it occurred after the release, and then proceeded to condemn the administration without offering any condolences at all to the families that experienced losses during the attack. And then walked away from the stage smirking.

It wasn’t only what Romney said in the Mother Jones video, but the way he said it, that got my attention. For a change, while on the campaign trail, he was telling us what he really thinks. Poof, gone was the silly, robotic grin, gone was the wooden posturing. Romney has an obvious “tell” when he tries to bluff the electorate and tell his everchanging lies; he looks and acts like a department store mannequin.

His logic is quite faulty. But what do his followers care about logic?

According to the Tax Foundation, “eight of the top ten states with the lowest income-tax liability are the heart of Romney country — the deep south.
So are these Romney voters in the red or red neck states also part of the group he claims don’t pay income taxes and depend on the government for healthcare and food stamps?

Are they too dumb to understand that he has just pulled his pants down and stuck his behind in their faces. These are working classes and poor people, some are both. And follow him blindly.

This guy is a piece of work.
Don’t try to debate a fool. Just let him keep talking. He is the gift who keeps on giving.

The debates are coming. No matter what position he is going to take on a subject matter he is bound to contradict a previous position he has taken.

Anyone who believes that this man’s moral compass is aligned with anyone but wealthy people like himself would be better served by jumping out of highrise building and cutting their throats on the way down.

Again, the GOP proves they are just doing everything possible to keep the middle class down. Since the day Obama has been elected they will not allow for progress. Let me ask you something. Why do you think they are doing everything possible to stop him? Could it be he is really trying to Change everything we HOPEd for? He is breaking up the Good Old Party and making them look like the crooks they are. If your mind isn’t made up yet about Romney us , let a 47%er with 3 jobs that has WORKED for every dime he has earned tell you a few things.

Benjamin Netanyahu a personal friend and former business partner of Mitt Romney is pressing Obama and asking for the USA to start drawing red lines with Iran . Romney wants to increase military spending if he is elected president. Netanyahu wants with my tax dollars and my brother and sisters to attack Iran. I wonder if Mitt’s family will be enlisting or will his son hide in France like Mitt did while my father was shot and sprayed with Agent Orange.

Romney’s budget will remove mortgage interest and child care tax credit from the 2013 tax return to make up for the tax breaks for the same people that have not created jobs since 2003. How is that fair to the middle class. Our homes and children are our investments in the country’s future. Take a few % away from those companies that are making billions of a few gallons of gas I can afford each week. I think they can afford to invest in America.

Romney will not show his taxes to the American people but takes millions of dollars from Donors all over the world. These donors want something in return for their money.. How do you trust Romney isn’t running for President to make more money for himself by changing policies and regulations? What is he hiding. I have had to show more ID and tax records to buy a house this year then Mitt has to run for President. Also don’t give me any crap about Obama. He provided his Birth Cert and his school records mean nothing. IF you want Obama’s school records I want Mitt’s SAT’s and the full reason why he dodged the draft .

Also my grandparents, my mother, father Mother in Law and Father in law worked 40+ years for their right to medicare so they can retire . A voucher isn’t the answer. Obamacare will make our health in this country better. Not weaken it. It already has saved my Mother in law (bought a policy for the 1st time in 15 years) and is helping my Cousin with his preexisting conditions. (he is 10)

Mr. Magic-Pants does it again!
I love how the GOP just keeps pushing inarticulate puppets (mittens) for president.

Isn’t it funny how a cheater who stows his money off-shore to not pay taxes throws the word “cheater” around. He criticizes Obama for allowing American manufacturing jobs to go to China, all the while investing heavily in those same corporations that outsource and throw Americans to the curb!

Of course this is what the left and the media will focus on. They don’t want you to ponder the likelihood that our “ambassador” killed in Egypt was there trying to recover weapons we(Obama) gave them, and was possibly killed by them. There are also several reports that the “ambassador” was sodomized, and he was killed BEFORE the riots even started. The riots were a ruse, and only two days ago, U.N. ambassador Rice was insisting this wall because of a movie. It looks like maybe Al-Qaeda is clinging to OUR guns and THEIR religion.

He was killed in Libya, not Egypt, and the seals were contractors hired to investigate possible MANPADS and destroy them. The report of sodomy is unconfirmed and has since been demonstrated to be false.

The MANPADS came from Gadhafi’s regime and consisted of both russian and american models that were dumped into the market in the 1980’s. Surprisingly enough, both presidents during the 80’s were republicans. I somehow doubt that Obama was jetting around the middle east as an arms dealer back then, however, let’s not forget the Iran-Contra affair so perhaps you meant Reagan and somehow typed “Obama” instead.

It’s quite ironic how he chooses to blast the 47% that rely on government. I was a Republican until George W. got into the picture. I do not feel I belong to either party anymore. But I do know that if it is 47% of that rely on our government, it’s because of the Republicans! Look at the mess George W. left us with. Granted, Obama hasn’t done anything to make it better, but at least it isn’t worse. And truthfully, we can’t blame one person. Look back over the last 4 years. It was the fighting between Republicans and Democrats that got us NOWHERE. They couldn’t even agree on what to have for lunch. I’m disgusted with all of them.

Wow, what a breaking news story. The 47% of voters who were going to vote for Obama under any circumstance, still will. And the 47% that won’t vote for Obama under any circumstance still won’t. Seems that Willard was pretty accurate in his statement that the race will be fought over the 6-7% in the middle, or described a different way, the exact same thing that happened in the 2008,2004, & 2000 elections, will happen in the 2012 elections. Shocking.

Oh meanwhile our dear ruler campaigns in Las Vegas (oddly enough after he told people to stop going there) while our embassies are under siege in country after country and China and Japan are on the brink of war. Good times glad the “journalists” on this site and others are focusing on the important, late breaking news that Romney thinks hard core Obama voters won’t vote for him anyway.

And Johhny Boy, if the Mittster were caught in bed with a live Cub Scout or a dead hooker, you and your patriotic, freedom-loving right wingers would still add up to the 47% that would vote for the SOB.

Romney is correct on his statement. Many of the people that receive government benefits will vote for Obama. Wasn’t that long ago Mr Obama made the commit “rural voters “get bitter, they cling to their guns or religion” was aimed at same people who would never vote for him.
I must admit this is a great distraction from the real world problems. As the American Idol President has a fundraiser with Jay-z and Beyonce tonight plus on the Letterman show, An Islamic flag hung at our embassy in Tunisia and Egypt only 3 days ago. I would think this should be where the real outrage should be pointed!!

“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background – there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.”

Here’s, for your comparison, is what Romney said:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. […]

[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

This would be a really big story if it wasn’t true and the story wasn’t already months old by now. The statistics have been out there for years showing the trend towards poverty and welfare have steadily increased since Obama took office. Would it make much sense to continue on that dismal path? Apparently it does to Obama. Clearly this President has not done anything to improve the 47% to even 46%. He is either deliberately causing suffering or is incompetent. Either way this is unacceptable for our nation.

I am glad to see the explanation of payroll taxes included in this article. Many other publications skipped right over that part. We pay our federal income taxes in monthly or weekly increments over the course of the year and settle up with the IRS in April. The amount on our 1040 form includes these already-paid taxes, which we deduct from the total. If we don’t owe anything in April, that doesn’t mean we don’t pay taxes. Only 18% of the workers don’t pay any taxes at all.

If ODumbo is re-elected (which will be do to the mindless welfare grubbers and the communist liberals), the United States of America will FALL in less then 3 years. Civil War will erupt and total destruction of society will begin. Needless to say you will get what you ask for ! Gee, who will sign your welfare checks then ?

Yes, it is best to re elect a feckless dolt and communist black Kenyan who has brought the country to financial collapse. Yes, vote for obama and destroy business and hike unemployment.

Yes, vote for obama and collect taxes but NEVER pay down the debt. Just keep spending till the taxpayers run out of money! /SPEND!!!

Vote for communist obama so he can brain wash your children and turn them into lazy, gold bricking government dependents. Who needs to be successful when you can stay home an rot waiting for your next welfare check.

Elect obama and enjoy the highest levels of poverty in the U.S. And why not? No one will have to work and obama will just go around blaming everyone else for the failure of America because the dolt in chief never takes responsibility or ownership of his promises.

Vote for obama and enjoy the dishonesty and hollow promises he offers you as he reads his teleprompter. Heaven forbid he should speak and reveal his genuine HATE AMERICA policies.

Vote for obama to promote racism and class warfare. Yes, obama wants class warfare so he can bring down marshal law by his own police force and control your miserable little lives under his tyrannical presidency.

Vote for obama and watch him accelerate his use of executive orders to bypass the constitution and rule like the tyrant and despot he see himself as.

Yes, be a good little slave and peasant because that what you are becoming under obama.

Not ready for prime time …. Willard Milton Romney. Heck, I’ll say it, thanks Mitt for telling us what you really think about Americans and world issues. I appreciate your unscripted unvarnished views. Clear for me to see you really really want to be President (make your Daddy proud to do what he couldn’t) but REALLY you don’t have the right stuff to be President. My advice, sail away to your offshorse paradise. Hang out with your high rolling buds. Enjoy the good life. You deserve it.

Shame on all you money grubbing disabled veterans, seniors, college students, handicapped children, and Alzheimer’s patients for sucking off the tits of Romney’s high rollers who made their money the hard way; by stealing millions of tax free dollars from the 47%. (sarcasm)

John Boy, I’ll settle for my freedom, thanks. And I’d like to be able to keep some of what I worked hard to earn. I do object to those who think they are entitled to all this. That is not the way I was raised. In my day, you earned your own keep. That way you took some pride in your life, in your accomplishments.

Lilly White grip? Very sad to hear anyone say such words in this day and age. Sad beyond belief.

I like reading this online news.
When I read this story I wondered how long it would take the bigots with their not so coded code words to show themselves.

Well that train always runs.

It took him/her/they until the end of the day but they surfaced.

If I can borrow a phrase from Ann Romney. Why don’t “You People” just come out and call the President by the derogatory name that you really want to use instead of couching it in your not so coded code words?

Looks like Mitt is just confirming what Obama himself has said many times in many ways and is now playing out his desire to make Americans dependent on government while making the business environment too difficult for people to work hard and provide for their families by taking their money to redistribute to others that don’t work for what ever reason, which drives more people to dependency. That’s what this election is all about. Personally I don’t want to be forced to work for other people to benefits off the fruits of my labor. I don’t know many people who really support this ideology. Free America and FIRE Obama!

“Shame on all you money grubbing disabled veterans, seniors, college students, handicapped children, and Alzheimer’s patients for sucking off the tits of Romney’s high rollers who made their money the hard way; by stealing millions of tax free dollars from the 47%. (sarcasm) ”

Shame on you for changing the wording of the speech to suit yourself. The actual words were “some redistribution” not redistribution in total. But be sure to tell a disabled Iraq war vet that you don’t think he or she deserves some of the “fruits of your labor”.

“Mother Jones, the left-wing magazine that released a controversial video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks to a fundraiser in May, now admits that it has no full tape of what Romney said, and that its video is missing “one to two minutes” at the most important moment.”

Oh yea……

and if anyone thinks Obama is all about partial redistribution you are naive if not deliberately ignorant.

[The comment below by Ben Blakely, plagiarized from a November 2010 news story by Atlanta-based WSB-TV, makes numerous misleading or false assumptions that have been circulated in mass emails sent out by the American Family Association ever since, and discredited or put in their proper context by Factcheck.org, which explains a State Department program designed to rebuild culturally significant mosques around the world, as well as temples and churches. The program “isn’t the brainchild of President Barack Obama,” Factcheck found. “The program was created by Congress in late 2000 under President Bill Clinton, and the first grants were announced under President George W. Bush in 2001. The State Department says that, in total, the fund has contributed nearly $26 million to approximately 640 cultural heritage sites in more than 100 countries, and more than half was given before Obama took office. It’s true that mosques are among the cultural sites that have received grant money under this program. But temples and churches around the world also have received funding, contrary to AFA’s claim that the “secular left” would be upset if “these monies had been spent to repair Christian churches.” WSB-TV’s reporting was especially misleading when it referred to the refurbishing of a Cairo mosque. Factcheck spoke to a USAID official, “who told us that the Cairo sewer project, which did total about $770 million, began in 1984 and ended in 2006. It was a major undertaking that wasn’t specifically directed to the mosque, though about $2.3 million was used ‘to help lower the groundwater at the mosque area, replacing the old sewage collector, and providing a healthier environment for people living in the area.'”

The full Factcheck is available here, and is worth reading before going on to Blakeley’s pasting of the WSB report below. FlaglerLive welcomes comments that shed light on any side of an issue. FlaglerLive will not approve comments that deliberately mislead or lie. We do so in this instance to illustrate the dishonesty of some commenters’ tactics–learned of course from equally tendentious media outlets–and to put them on notice that these tactics are not tolerated here. Keep in mind that Blakely cut and pasted the excerpt without attribution or links, which is also dishonest.–FL]

ASHINGTON, D.C. — A Channel 2 Action News investigation found that the State Department under direction from President Obama is sending tens of millions of dollars to save mosques overseas. This investment has received criticism as the United States makes an effort to slash nearly $4 trillion in government spending.Plenty of outrage following the announcement made Thursday afternoon by a government commission that suggested huge cuts to the budget, including eliminating the interest education for home mortgage. This juxtaposed with the United States investing millions to refurbish mosques as a good-will effort in Muslim countries has upset many taxpayer groups.

“We are spending money we don’t have. This is all on a gigantic credit card right now,” said Jared Thomas, a taxpayer advocate.

Millions more dollars have been sent to places like Cyprus. The State Department displays before and after pictures of mosques refurbished with U.S. tax dollars.

“I think it is very hard to explain to the American taxpayer right now whose having an extraordinary time paying bills and making ends meet that this is why we took this out of your paycheck, so we can fund this,” said Thomas.
“We are rebuilding mosques to support the radicals, not to support the moderates. We are building mosques to issue fatwas of death against people like me,” said Darwish.

Your tax dollars also fund computers and mosques in places like Tajikistan and Mali. At an ancient mud brick mosque in Mali, the State Department has provided Internet service and computer equipment to local imams. Obama is misguieded and spends wildly on Muslims while American students suffer with ill equipped classes.

Taxpayer watchdogs wonder how the State Department can explain paying for Internet service while Americans struggle through the worst recession in decades.

“To the average person who has probably seen their paycheck shrink and not grow, this could be an insult to them,” said Pete Sepp, President of the National Taxpayers Association.

With radical websites inciting violence and extremism worldwide, there are concerns that the taxpayer-funded Internet service could be misused.

“That is not the job of the U.S. because giving them Internet access to imams and Muslim preachers who hate America,” said Darwish.

It looks as though the 47% number is about to grow. Obama is keeping one of his promises…bankrupt the coal industry. Another 1200 coal miner’s where given their pink slips this week, and today, we learn up to 11,000 American Airline employees could be losing their jobs. Our flag burns day and night in the Middle East, Europe’s debt is a crisis, and our debt is a crisis. Japan and China are at a standoff and all the press can focus on is this story? The real story should be out how more and more people who live in this country, have become more dependent on the government at no fault of their own.
To really understand how backwards things have become, you only have to look at what is taking place in the Chicago school system. With a graduation rate of barely 60%, the teacher’s new contract will give them a 16% pay raise of 4 years and more days off. With that being said, the school board foresees a$1 billion deficit next year. Looks like we adopting Mob rule in this country.

You did not list a source for your synopsis of the Chicago teacher’s strike settlement. I hope this helps you to better understand if your source was Fox News:

“In 89 segments between September 10 and 16, Fox News reported on the Chicago Teachers Union’s strike without disclosing its financial ties to the educational technology company administering the standardized tests with which the union takes issue.

Fox News parent company News Corp. acquired a 90-percent stake in Wireless Generation in 2010. Last May, the company agreed to provide Early Mathematics Assessment Services and Early Literacy Assessment Services to Chicago Public Schools. These contracts total $4.7 million. A central reason the Chicago Teachers Union decided to strike is their objection to the school district’s call for heavily weighing such standardized testing to ultimately determine teacher pay and layoffs.

But Fox News anchors and reporters never once disclosed its parent company’s ties to Wireless Generation even as the network routinely criticized the strike and the Chicago Teachers Union.”

Here is the full transcript of what President Obama really said about redistribution 14 years ago:

OBAMA: Let me just close by saying, as we think about the policy research surrounding the issues that I just named, policy research for the working poor, broadly defined, I think that what we’re going to have to do is somehow resuscitate the notion that government action can be effective at all. There has been a systematic — I don’t think it’s too strong to call it a propaganda campaign against the possibility of government action and its efficacy. And I think some of it has been deserved. Chicago Housing Authority has not been a model of good policymaking. And neither necessarily have been the Chicago Public Schools.

What that means, then, is, is that as we try to resuscitate this notion that we’re all in this thing together, leave nobody behind, we do have to be innovative in thinking, what are the delivery systems that are actually effective and meet people where they live? And my suggestion, I guess, would be that the trick — and this is one of the few areas where I think there are technical issues that have to be dealt with, as opposed to just political issues — I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution, because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot.

“First, while 46 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax in 2011, most of those paid the payroll tax, which, by itself, puts most Americans’ tax liability at more than half that of Mitt Romney’s 13 percent: it’s not smart for a man whose millions are taxed so lightly to criticize half of America of paying no taxes.”

Taxed lightly? This puts most American’s tax liability at more than half of Romney’s? Pierre, I think you need to go back to school and learn the different between percentages and actual amounts. On the flip side, if I paid only $5 in taxes last year and you paid only $1, should I envy you because I paid 500% more in taxes than you? Just to help guide you, if we take a conservative amount and say Romney made 20 million last year, 13 percent of that is $2.6 million. Half of that is $1.3 million. Did you pay more than $1.3 million in taxes Pierre? Will you ever pay that much in your lifetime? Is it because he is successful, we should envy him and insist that he pays more?

People need to wake up. This isn’t about rich vs. poor, democrat vs. republican, this is about free market vs. the abyss of government waste, dependency, and inefficiency. As our government has grown, we have transformed from a highly productive, competitive free market society that generated unsurpassed wealth to a bunch of wealth consumers, just looking at what our neighbors have that we can take.

I for one, would rather have Mitt’s money in the free market than given to a wasteful government, that will end up borrowing half again as much to sustain out of control spending.

Regarding the Ben Blakley posting. . . thanks so much, Flagler Live, for keeping the posters honest. We all benefit from fact checking instead of just posting political (lies) propaganda often found on the internet.

4,000 millionaires are included in the Mitt’s 47% who pay no taxes, another 14,000 who made between $500,000. and $999.999. also did not pay any income tax. Mitt wants to expand these numbers and make the elderly, disabled and poor pickup the tab. No wonder he has been called a Mormon Cult Leader.

Late Tuesday evening, Jacobson obtained the following comment from David Corn of Mother Jones:

According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this quickly and turned it back one [sic]. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed.

Check it out for your self…..if the video camera shut off then it shut off . Is it possible the tape was leaked so Romney could gaff the president over his 1998 redistribution comments on another tape? I think it is possible.

“Americans strongly believe that there is too much government dependency in the country today. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of Adults think there are too many Americans dependent on the government for financial aid. Just 10% think not enough Americans are dependent on the government, while 16% say the level of dependency is about right. (To see survey question wording, click here.) ”

@Dorothea
I got the contract information Wednesday morning in the Tampa Bay Times, the story came from the New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/vote-scheduled-on-chicago-teachers-contract.html?pagewanted=all
The part about the 60% graduation rate came from NBC news. Its good the teachers went on strike. I wonder how people knew they had one of the lowest graduations rates in the country.That the city median household income, is $43,628, yet the average teacher income was $76,000 before the new pay raises. Would you go to a hospital with a 60% success rate for surgery? Then would you give them a raise for their work? Stories like this need to be reported more often. The story from media matters and Fox news is a none issue in my opinion.

The story from media matters and Fox news is a none issue in my opinion.

@Dorothea
I got the contract information Wednesday morning in the Tampa Bay Times, the story came from the New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/vote-scheduled-on-chicago-teachers-contract.html?pagewanted=all
The part about the 60% graduation rate came from NBC news. Its good the teachers went on strike. I wonder how people knew they had one of the lowest graduations rates in the country.That the city median household income, is $43,628, yet the average teacher income was $76,000 before the new pay raises. Would you go to a hospital with a 60% success rate for surgery? Then would you give them a raise for their work? Stories like this need to be reported more often. The story from media matters and Fox news is a none issue in my opinion.

Thank you for posting the New York Times article, a far more balanced article than your post would imply. I have no problem with teachers who earn $76,000 a year if you consider that many have masters degrees or higher and that the cost of living in Chicago is 13.5% higher than it is in Orlando.

“…. that the contract includes provisions for the school day and year to be lengthened (though state law gives the district the power to do so on its own). “This gives a kindergartener today two extra years of learning by the time she graduates high school,” he said.

Also, he said the deal was good for taxpayers. As part of the agreement the union will drop its litigation against the Board of Education for rescinding a promised 4 percent raise in 2011.

The final teacher salary increase was only 1 percent more than the original offer and will cost the district less than in previous agreements.”

I also don’t agree that the socio-economic factors that enter into a graduation rate are comparable to surgery. I wish that the graduation rate was that simple a problem to cure. Florida overall has a graduation rate of 70% which could certainly use some improving.

I do note that you failed to answer or source the rest of your comment, in particular, “redistribution” which got a pants-on-fire rating as a lie (see article FlaglerLive) and the lies perpetrated about the coal industry by its owners. The coal industry is losing out to cleaner and cheaper natural gas, the result of our free market economy.